Amexme Quintana Roo Pushes Regional Integration to Bolster Local Businesses

Cancún, Quintana Roo — The Mexican Association of Women Entrepreneurs (Amexme) in Quintana Roo is moving ahead with a strategy to integrate its regional chapters and strengthen local supply chains, the group’s Cancún president said.

“We have seen that there are small farming communities, and that is what we want to take advantage of here — that inputs and some products, such as glass, are not brought in from outside. We are researching this part about glass or plastics so we do not have to bring them in from outside. So we are in that process. Next month, I believe I will have another meeting with the president of the Chetumal chapter, and we will keep working hand in hand so that we no longer see each other as isolated entities,” Deniss Montiel, president of Amexme Cancún, explained.

Professional Services Part of the Plan

The coordination also covers professional services, so Cancún will back Chetumal with accounting, tax and legal firms. Through the effort, the association aims to build a self-sustaining regional ecosystem with national reach.

Despite a difficult economic environment during the second half of the year, the businesswomen have begun connecting members in order to close the first direct commercial exchanges in the short term.

Facing year-end expenses such as mandatory annual bonuses, Montiel said most members have financial provisions in place thanks to continuous training and the emergency funds established since the pandemic.

“The reality is that what we seek most in the association is professionalization. Within that professionalization comes how to budget. We already have the year-end bonus portion covered and I know many members are already doing that, but that is precisely why we hold these training sessions, to make us aware, because this came out of the pandemic; since then, we all should already have an emergency fund,” she said.

So far, she said, only two of the association’s nearly 80 members have taken out loans. That has been offset by new business openings in the services sector, which have helped smooth out fluctuations in sales.